Chapter 2 - Sociological Investigation Flashcards
The concept of society as a thing best fits what approach and why?
The concept of society is a thing best fits the structural-functionalist approach.
- The original analogy with society as a body - a single thing with differentiated parts.
- Conflict approach does not treat society as the single thing:
- Divisions are stressed
- Can the foot be opposed to the hand? The stomach to the heart?
- Symbolic interaction views meaning and order been created and re-created with every interaction
The sociological imagination
Example 1
Personal trouble
- Don’t have a job
Public issues
- High unemployment rate
- migration of jobs
- Inadequate skills training programs
- Lacks social capital
- Inadequate public transit
- Price of oil
Example 2
Personal trouble
- Don’t see your grandparents because you live a long way from them
Public issue
- Geographic location of economic opportunities
- Housing policies
- Labour policies
- Immigration rules
What is the definition of science?
A logical system that faces knowledge on direct, systematic observation.
What is the definition of empirical evidence?
Information we can verify with our senses.
Types of variables
- Binary variables (Dichotomous variable)
- Two categories-either/Or
- E.G. Living/dead; pass/fail; Rich/poor.
- Categorical variable (Nominal variable)
- Several unranked categories
- E.G. Married/never married/widowed/divorce/separated
- Ordinal variable
- Several categories along a scale
- E.G. Rich/affluent/middle income/poor/destitute
- Continuous variable (interval variable)
- Progression of measurement on a scale but not restricted to specific values
- E.G. Income in dollars or age in years
What are the choices and variables?
Creating variables involved choices of what to measure, how to measure and what type of variable to use.
For example, when researching the effective age:
- Young/olds
- Infant/preschooler/child/teenager/youth/adult/old
- Age in years or months
When thinking about using variables you must determine what you were trying to accomplish
What is correlation between variables?
Correlation is a relationship in which two variables changed together.Positive correlation almost the same way whereas negative or inverse correlation move the opposite ways.
Examples:
- Temperature and ice cream sales
- You’re the post secondary education income
- Impulse control is the toddler and being charge for the crime as a teenager
Correlation can meet and causality if…
- If one change in one variable (independent variable) causes the change in the other variable (dependent variable).
- Temperature dropping below 0° causes water to freeze
- Impaired driving causes more motor vehicle accidents
- To say that A causes B:
- Change in A must precede B (precedence)
- A change in B must not result in a change in A (directionality)
- Ideally, a mechanism can be identified (or at least theorized)
- A causal correlation can be used to protect things
- In social sciences, causality usually is probabilistic
Does correlation equal causality?
No, we should be careful because correlation does not equal causality.
- Confounding variables
- Latent variables
- Intervening variables
- Reverse causation
- Playing chance
Why is it important to identify the cause of the correlation?
It’s important to identify the cause of the correlation because sometimes the cause is just by means of plain chance. just because two things correlate to want another does not mean that they are relative to one another.
Example: There is a positive correlation between drownings in swimming pools and ice cream sales. At first glance, it would seem as though the increase in ice cream sales is what causes more drowning. However, Not a situation has much to do with the other with the exception of the fact that. There is an increase in drownings during summer and an increase in ice cream sales during summer. Summer is the reason for the increase in both.
What is to be considered when choosing measurements and research?
The message we choose or not a given, but our choices determined by:
- What is available
- The tools we have with which to measure
- Our structural concepts
- Our political and research agenda
What are two issues to worry about when choosing measurements for research?
Reliability
- Are you measuring accurately?
- Using your own foot to measure the number of feet between place to place
- Peoples memories affecting survey responses
- Peoples desires please affecting survey responses. (How much do you drink?)
Validity
- Are you measuring what you think you are measuring?
- Particularly tough with abstract sociological concepts. (How do you measure “social solidarity” or “cohesion”?
What is interpretive sociology?
The study of society that focuses on meanings people attached to their social world
what are the differences between scientific versus interpretive sociology?
Scientific
- Studies actions
- Objective reality “out there”
- Quantitative data (Counting things, comparing variables)
- Goal is prediction and explanation
Interpretive
- Studies meanings
- Reality constructed by people on an ongoing basis
- Qualitative data (Closely examining words and actions for meanings)
- Goal is understanding
What is critical sociology?
Critical sociology is the study of society that focuses on the need for social change
“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.” - Karl Marx, 1845
- The society is a structured system based on the quality
- Social conflicts between groups over scarce resources is the norm
- Race, sex, class, and a drilling to social inequality
